Drifting
by Pirateweasel
Summary: Why is it so hard to Drift... when you were cast adrift long ago? Achieve drift with someone she can partner with—anyone that she can partner with, Pentecost tells her, he doesn't care if it's the lunch lady or a janitor—within the next three weeks, or be ejected from the jaeger pilot program. Contains OCs, mention of family deaths, mention of implied past rape/non-con.


Drifting.

Ralia had never been able to complete the neural handshake. Just couldn't 'close the deal', as they said…but she couldn't leave, either.

"You have some of the best scores from the trainee groups, Jamison. You are practically drifting with more than half of your sparring partners in the Kwoon. We can't afford to let resources go at this point. Things are stretched too thin, and we are running out of options… We will find you a partner, Jamison. We need you here until we do."

_Great. She was a 'resource' now. At least they were honest; at least they let her know that she was nothing more than a tool for them to use._

Ralia hated the thought of being used.

She hadn't wanted to be in the program. She had wanted to just curl up in a ball and stay there forever after the word came about her family's deaths during the attack at Vancouver.

Ralia was a ship in deep waters…and now her anchor was missing; leaving her drifting alone, waiting until she drifted onto the reef that would smash her apart.

Her mother, Gladys—_soft eyes that were as sharp as a knife when she thought you were up to something; heart so strong you could feel it beat every time she hugged you…and she never stopped hugging you, you were never too big to hug,_ her father, Malik—_"I am so proud of you," he had told her when she got the letter announcing her scholarship, big hands showing her how to tie her shoes…how to tie any knot in the world— "You can hold anything together, baby girl" he had declared, "because you know which knot to use…" _her little brother, Hackett—_big eyes watching her as she showed him how to hypnotize the lizards that lived in their back yard, voice cracking as he shouted to her from the end zone of the field during his first football game, yelling as he ran through the house with her diary in hand while she chased him and shouted threats_; all of them gone in the eyeblink of a kaiju.

The only thing left of them was the picture postcard her family had made and sent her the day before the attack. Her father, mother, and little brother standing surrounded by cherry trees at the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, arms wrapped around each other to hold on tight, big grins on their faces. _Greetings, from the family vacation of a lifetime! The only thing missing is you…"_

No, the only thing missing was them.

Forever.

* * *

The next two years Ralia isn't there. A robot named Ralia has taken her place; goes to her classes, studies for tests, works her job at the local copy shop. It's easier that way.

Robots don't feel.

Until the jaeger program.

She hadn't planned on applying. She hadn't even realized that she had agreed to get tested, really. It had been just a mindless 'sure, why not?' that she had said to quiet the pestering voices of her college roommates.

"You have to do _something,_ Ralia. It's not good for you to hole up here like this. Come on, we're all going to do it…"

But _'it'_ had turned out to be the test to find jaeger pilots; and Ralia's scores hadn't been merely high enough to assure her entry into the pilot program. She had scored high enough to make it almost mandatory for her to enter the program.

When they had told her of her scores and what they meant she had received the news dully; only one thing making it through the numbness that had surrounded her since hearing of the loss of her family—her anchor.

_I could kill kaiju. _

She could kill the things that had stolen her family from her; that had left her alone with an aching hole in her being that she couldn't leave alone, prodding at it like a tongue at the empty socket left behind from having a tooth pulled. She could pilot a jaeger and kill them all…

If she could manage to drift successfully with someone.

She hadn't. No one in the program had been able to complete the neural handshake with her. Strangely enough, she could link with the AIs that were meant to assist in linking pilots to jaegers—_surprise as she thinks, "huh, robots _do_ feel_—however, she had not been able to link with anyone from her program. The other pilot trainees that she had been grouped with had gone on to either find their partner and be assigned to a jaeger, or washed out of the program long before now. Even here, Ralia was left behind, left alone.

They checked and re-checked Ralia and her scores, ran tests of all types, and put her through a battery of psych evals. Finally they simply said that she didn't trust the people she was trying to drift with.

The handshake would start to form, the pilots would begin to enter the drift; but before it could go deep enough, far enough for them to merge…she would find a R.A.B.I.T.

And while Ralia and the other pilot trainees had all been trained not to chase the RABIT, Ralia would take it one step further…she shut it out completely, locking it away behind mental walls so high that even the drift couldn't reach her. And the handshake and drift would fail…again.

* * *

Eventually someone got the idea of talking to one of the other trainees that had attempted the drift with her; asking them what had happened.

"I don't know. One minute everything is fine, I can feel it starting to fit together like a puzzle; and the next minute a memory comes up and I'm locked out…"

"What memory?"

"I dunno; her and some guy… I get that memories shift around during drift, they say it goes through you again like you're reliving it—and so is your partner—like it's happening now; but it's like she's so uptight about someone seeing her have fun that she can't deal. I get locked out every time. I asked some of the others, they said the same thing."

When they tried to get Ralia to talk to them about it, to agree to let someone else into that memory during the drift, she had just looked at them blankly and said only one word. "No."

"I understand from your file that you came from a conservative household; but are you really going to let some misplaced guilt and prudishness over a sexual encounter put the world at risk?"

We need pilots, desperately. If we didn't you would have been washed out long ago. And we know you want to be a pilot. You're running out of time and chances, Jamison. There aren't any more candidates here for you to try to link with."

We're sending you to Hong Kong. If you can find someone to partner there, great. If not, you're out of the program. There's only so much time and energy to waste on a pilot that can't drift…"

Which is why she is here now, looking around a foreign city, a new and different base, trying to get her bearings.

It's hard—no, it's impossible—to do so without an anchor.

And the kaiju stole hers when they stole her family.

Hong Kong.

There is noise, more noise than she's ever heard before…not at school, not at college, not even at the pilot training base that she had been assigned to until now. Cars and bikes, bells and whistles, all of it combined with the babble of at least four separate languages…only one of which she understands at all. And light…as if every light in the world is on, flashing, blinking and glaring at her as she looks around in the crowd of people pushing past her on their way to wherever it is they are going. Ralia stands there, her hand wound through the strap of her duffle as she casts her gaze around looking for something to show her where to go, or what to do, or who it is that has been sent to meet her. She is lost in this sea of swarming, pushing humanity, and feels overwhelmed. It's the same feeling that she had as a child when her family went on a trip to the coast. She had been swimming and gotten caught up by a wave, unable to swim free and head back to the beach as it seemed to relentlessly pull her out further into the water. Just as she had been about to panic, an arm had wrapped around her, and her father's deep voice had said, "It's okay, Ralia. It's just a wave, and I've got you."

But now there is no one to tell her that it's only a wave and lead her back to the shore.

Another look around the huge crowded area of the Hong Kong airport, and she spots a crude cardboard sign written in English that is being waved over the head of a young man. The sign has her name on it, so she heads in the direction of the man holding it.

The young man wearing BDU's and holding the sign offers to carry her duffle, babbling on about why she was flown into Hong Kong's airport instead of directly into the Shatterdome like she had expected. Not that it matters, Ralia isn't listening to him. She's too busy wondering when—if—she will find her partner here. There has to be someone that she can drift with.

Pilots drift—or they aren't pilots. And if she's not a pilot, how will she kill kaiju?

The trip to Hong Kong's Shatterdome doesn't take long, the entire time broken with more words from the man who greeted her. She knows he told her his name, but it doesn't matter. It hasn't mattered since early in the trip when he said where he worked on the base. He's not a pilot. Not someone who can be partnered with her.

When she reports in at the Shatterdome, she notes the Marshall's name.

Pentecost.

Her father would have reminded her that Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, causing them to speak in tongues and so that they could be understood by strangers—enabling the disciples to continue their mission—the way the drift helps pilots to understand each other. He would have said it was a good sign. Ralia hopes that it proves to be true.

After all, the only mission she allows herself now is killing kaiju.

Ralia listens to Marshal Pentecost as he tells her that they will try pairing her with each of the pilot trainees that are stationed here in Hong Kong—and that _she _is to try to let go of whatever it is that is keeping her solo. There are no solo pilots, jaegers must have two people in the cockpit; and they don't have time to waste with someone who only qualifications are as a pilot, but can't drift with anyone. This time, Ralia is given a deadline. Achieve drift with someone she can partner with—_anyone_ that she can partner with, Pentecost tells her, he doesn't care if it's the lunch lady or a janitor—within the next three weeks, or be ejected from the jaeger pilot program. She nods her head and answers at the right times, and apparently with replies that are enough to satisfy the marshal for the moment; however, nothing feels right as it tries to fight through the numbness that surrounds her. All that she really registers is that she has to find someone…she HAS to drift.

Why is it so hard? Isn't she already drifting without her anchors?

The next two and a half weeks are exhausting—both mentally and physically—as the instructors throw everything they have at Ralia in an effort to find someone she can partner with. She has literally spent more time sparring in the Kwoon than she has in her quarters, and that doesn't take into consideration the time spent on more evals of every kind imaginable as any trainee that seems like a candidate for partnering her is sent with her to attempt a drift.

At night, Ralia lies in her bunk in the cavernous grey room that houses trainees that are just entering the program (why assign her private quarters when it's likely that soon she will be sent back as a failure?) and feels the tight knot in her throat choke her as she weeps hot, angry tears in silence. She has to achieve drift, and soon. The thought of revenge, of killing kaiju is the closest thing she has to a sea anchor, now. It doesn't keep her from drifting off-course, but perhaps it is slowing down her eventual destruction. And she needs to feel something…even if it is only the heat of revenge slowly burning her soul down until it is nothing but a sullen ember.

Three days before the deadline she was given, and _HE_ makes his way into the Kwoon. Stalks into it is a more accurate description.

The ghost pilot.

The Void, they call him. The only pilot that can maintain the neural handshake and achieve drift, yet has never let his memories cross to his partners through the drift.

He doesn't have a partner. Not really. Because he has proven to be compatible with _ALL_ of the pilots, he is called in to help pilot jaegers in trouble; ones who may have had a pilot injured or killed. He joins with the drift, gets the jaeger back to base—in one instance, helping the remaining jaeger pilot to rejoin the fight against the kaiju that had mortally injured the pilot's original partner; allowing the pilot to take revenge and kill the kaiju—yet has never found anyone that will partner with him on a full-time basis. He's an anomaly in the Shatterdome, where jaeger pilots form bonds in the drift so close that they sometimes seem to be one person in two skins.

No one wants to partner with someone that they can't feel; not in a jaeger. It doesn't seem like it would be a problem, not having someone else's thoughts and memories going through your head—and in any other portion of the jaeger program it wouldn't be—however, when two have to be able to move and fight as one…it grows disturbing. None of his attempted pairings has lasted through a week of simulations, much less in an actual jaeger.

Now, seeing him in your jaeger is a sign that you are done. He has become a harbinger of destruction, only drifting with a pilot when everything has gone wrong and their partner is dead, or may be dying.

_Rinzler, John Alan; _she tells herself,remembering his name from the stories that are told in the mess hall.

Rumors abound about how he ended up in the jaeger program, why he registers to the other pilots as a void, exactly how he ended up with the scars from kaiju blue that trace their way down his face and throat and create that rough, low rasp of a voice.

None of the rumors are true.

All of the rumors are true.

The only one who knows is the marshal, and Pentecost doesn't waste his time telling others.

Ralia is too tired and worn for it to register who he is when he goes to the instructor, whispering in the instructor's ear before grabbing a bo and taking his place on the mat. The instructor gives a considering look to the lean figure waiting on the mat with hard, flat eyes and the light gleaming off of the dark skin of his shaved head and begins calling out names.

First one trainee is ordered to the mat, only to be sent reeling to sit on the sidelines a few moments later. Another one is called, and leaves with his nose bleeding and his head ringing. The third one doesn't even manage to block the first blow, and has to be helped off of the mat.

And then the instructor calls Ralia's name.

"Jamison! Get your butt out there!"

_Wonderful. A chance to be a piñata for someone who CAN pilot a jaeger. _

The taste is bitter in her mouth as she steps onto the mat and accepts the bo that is held out to her. She knows she's not a well-trained as most of the pilots, doesn't have the instincts that come from actual combat; but there's no way she's going to back down from this guy.

There is the 'clack' of bo's meeting as she manages to block his first few blows, the swish of air as she tries for a strike of her own and misses. This continues for just over a minute when something clicks between them, falls into place and links them together.

They are still trying for hits and blocking each other, still swinging bo's that don't reach their opponents; however, now it is moving into a dance…something choreographed between them where they _know_ where each is meant to be.

It isn't until the instructor yells at them that 'the match is over, get to the sims room_ NOW…'_ that Ralia understands what has happened.

She has practically achieved drift with someone on the mat. Someone who is already a jaeger pilot, but doesn't have a partner.

There is a chance that she's still in the fight to become a pilot.

Ralia breaks into a jog, sweat running down the back of her shirt, as she makes her way to the simulations room. Behind her are the rapid, measured footsteps of the Void.

At the end of the day Ralia is drenched in sweat and her muscles are screaming from exertion, but none of it matters. None of the ache in her body dulls the lightness in her at the final reports from the sims tech crews.

_Neural compatibility noted. Recommend further testing for drift compatibility_.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow they pair her in a jaeger with the Void to see if she can partner with him.

And maybe—just maybe—she won't have to try to lock out the RABIT.

After all, if the Void doesn't let his memories cross during drift…perhaps hers will not cross to him, either.

Because she can't handle that RABIT without an anchor.

* * *

The jaeger that is allotted to them for testing is Cobalt Tiger, a Mark-4.

It's not the newest jaeger, but when one of the first pilots put in her died before even linking up…she was given a bad rep. None of the other pilots want to take her out for a spin, see how she reacts to being piloted by them.

Doesn't seem to matter that the pilot died from an allergic reaction to something he ate right before he climbed into her cockpit; Cobalt Tiger has become as much an omen of disaster as seeing the Void join you in your cockpit.

Ralia shrugs the thought away. It's unimportant. The only thing that matters to her is that she might be able to pilot this jaeger. If she can pilot it, she can kill the kaiju.

In the drivesuit room, a tech helps her wrestle into her circuitry suit—_the suit always reminds her of a black version of the costumes from her father's favorite old movie, 'Tron'. She can hear his laughing voice telling her "hey, that movie is what made your old man become a programmer…" Would he laugh if he saw her now, looking like one of the film's extras?—_and then attaches the battle armor over it. The armor really isn't necessary for testing drift compatibility, but everything that can possibly push her into becoming a pilot faster is being done. If Ralia is compatible with the Void then already having become accustomed to being in the cockpit in armor will shave another day or two off of her training.

On the other side of the room, more techs are helping the Void into his drivesuit. There is no space or time for modesty between partnered pilots; and this is just one more test that she needs to pass. They ignore each other as they suit up, only sending the occasional glance over to see how close the other is to being ready to move to the jaeger. Ralia looks up as she pulls the scarf that she wears off of her head and catches him gazing at her; his eyes dark and expressionless as they slide over her shaved skull before it is hidden by her helmet.

She can't tell what the Void is thinking as he looks at her, and she doesn't care.

All that matters is becoming a pilot…and that means she needs him for her partner.

Ralia is in Cobalt Tiger's cockpit, relay gel cool against her skin under the helmet and spinal clamp in place. Ralia has been tagged as the 'right hemisphere' for the jaeger. She looks through the tinted visor at steel and digital displays lit by cool blue light, and waits to hear the voice of the LOCCENT officer initiating the neural handshake while she slips into headspace. Next to her in the cockpit stands the Void, already waiting for her in the drift….

Time is strange in headspace. What seems like several minutes or longer in head space—in reality is only a few seconds; yet in headspace Ralia is standing in the empty Kwoon—_neutral territory,_ one part of her mind says, while _the Kwoon is never empty_ insists another—staring back at the man on the other side of the mat, his empty eyes that are set in a scarred face watching her. From far away they can hear the LOCCENT officer saying over the intercom "…initiating neural handshake in 5…4…" and a woman's _Cobalt Tiger's _cool voice is telling them "…stable drift connection achieved…neural spike deploying to establish final connection to Pons system in 5…4…3…"

Somewhere—_in Cobalt Tiger's cockpit_—Ralia closes her eyes, nervous as she waits to—_seal the deal—_feel the final connection that could make her a pilot. In headspace her eyes never close as she waits to see—_please don't let me see_—if the RABIT makes its appearance. Maybe it won't…she's made it this far into the drift and handshake without it….

Something moves in the corner of her eye, and Ralia turns to see the RABIT. But this time, even as she starts to put up the wall_—seal it away, don't want to ever see it again, don't let them see—_there is a solid presence at her back and a low voice is rasping in her ear.

"You're stronger than this, Ralia…you can look and move on…_WE_ can move on…partners can do this, and we can be partners…"

A hand reaches for hers in headspace and she lets it lead her away, circling it like a ship around an anchor chain. From very far away, Ralia hears Cobalt Tiger's AI informing LOCCENT Mission Control that "…neural handshake is stable…Pons system connection is stable…stable drift achieved…beginning jaeger systems familiarization process…" as the Void and Ralia go through the process of learning their jaeger.

And Cobalt Tiger _is_ their jaeger; Ralia knows this with the same bone-deep certainty that tells her that the Void is her partner and they will pilot together.

The test is the most important thing in the world to her right now; later she will take the time to feel the shock and relief of not needing to chase the RABIT, or lock it away. Now, what matters to Ralia is controlling herself enough to control the jaeger, calling out moves in cadence with the man next to her in Cobalt Tiger's cockpit until the test is over and she climbs from the jaeger—_their jaeger, _something inside her insists—to find Marshal Pentecost waiting for her, a considering look on his face.

The marshal looks past Ralia to see the Void climb out of the cockpit and take his helmet off. Turning his gaze back to Ralia, Pentecost nods his head.

"Found yourself a partner," he says. "Good. Keep it that way. I need jaegers, not people and mechs that just sit there and look pretty. You go back in the drift tomorrow." With another quick glance behind her, the marshal turns and leaves; on his way to his own jaeger, Coyote Tango.

Behind her, there are footsteps, and then a rough voice says, "The name is not _the_ _Void;_ it's Rinzler. John Alan Rinzler."

It takes less than a second for her to turn to look at him, but by that time he's already walking away.

* * *

The next few days are the same: back into the drivesuit, climb into Cobalt Tiger's cockpit, and learn the jaeger and how to work better, faster, with her partner in headspace. More than half of her waking hours are being spent in the drift with the Vo—_Rinzler_, she reminds herself—and to Ralia's immense relief, she has not had to deal with the RABIT.

Rinzler's thoughts come and memories are slipping through now; but somehow he is so controlled that the only ones she can see and feel are memories of piloting other jaegers, nothing of the other pilots that he worked with thoughts or memories are there.

Ralia doesn't know if that is because of the short time-span Rinzler drifted with them; or if it's just because of Rinzler. Maybe he is keeping them from her. She realizes that she doesn't care anymore…it doesn't matter in Cobalt Tiger.

* * *

They have almost two weeks of drifting together when the alarm is raised.

Kaiju.

Cobalt Tiger is one of the jaegers deployed to face the threat.

Ralia doesn't remember much of the actual battle; letting Rinzler take the lead on tactics as she joins with him, the sullen ember of her soul flaring back into a hot flame at the chance for revenge. When it is done, and the kaiju is a dead, mangled thing falling back into the water…Ralia feels Rinzler reach for her in headspace.

"You did good," he tells her, clapping a hand onto her shoulder. "WE did good, together…"

The sudden wave of emotion that washes off of him is startling: anger, satisfaction, relief, and a burning ache that she recognizes as the desire for revenge against kaiju.

She blinks, both in real-time and headspace, and says, "Thanks."

* * *

They are given a day to rest, and then it's back to training. More time is spent in the Kwoon, or learning tactics, being briefed on the kaiju, and back into Cobalt Tiger. Hours are logged in the drift and under handshake, both in Cobalt Tiger and in the sims. The techs alternate between grumbling about the increased work load and being ecstatic over the readings that they receive from the Pons.

Time passes—slowly in the drift, far too fast outside of it—and Ralia and Rinzler (call me John, he tells her one day) are growing closer to the bond that most pilots share. As their trust in each other grows, so do their linked memories and thoughts.

He knows that she shaved her head—not because of the Pons headset, as most of the others believe—because she can't bear to see her father's eyes staring emptily out of her mother's face when she looks in the mirror. She learns that he has to fight not to turn and look whenever a little girl's voice calls out "Daddy!" –_Mistie at the age of four, small brown fingers offering up a mud pie as dessert—_when they leave the Shatterdome to visit the city. John feels the helpless anger of not being strong enough to fight off the boy he/she thought loved him/her; Ralia knows what it is to be wrapped in the arms of the woman she/he loves more than life itself.

John knows what it feels like to have your anchor stolen and your place taken by a robot. Ralia knows what it feels like to hold the bodies of your family while kaiju blue sears a hot line across your face and throat, changing your voice while you scream out your loss.

Both of them know the hot, satisfying rush of revenge when they are deployed to fight the kaiju.

* * *

By the end of the first year they have spent so much time in the neural handshake and drifting together in Cobalt Tiger that they are ghost drifting regularly.

It's startling the first time John reaches for something that's not in front of him, but in front of Ralia. Ralia almost drops the soap the first time she realizes that the skin she's lathering up is not pale, but dark. There are other potential chances for mishaps as they first begin to ghost drift , but they make their way through them.

One and a half years after their first drift, and three kaiju kills later Cobalt Tiger's pilots have logged almost as much time in handshake as some of the more veteran pilot teams. The techs and even some of the other pilots have started to notice that they move in the same way, use the same mannerisms. That sense of one person in two bodies becomes more pronounced with each drift.

One day, Ralia catches herself telling someone that "June, my wife used to make the most amazing…".

The next week, John is overheard saying that his "little brother, Hack, would have loved to see Hong Kong."

* * *

They are so closely intertwined with each other that the first time they fall into each other's arms—pulling at drivesuits to reach the skin underneath—it feels more unnatural to not be there.

There are more moments together—_they are always together now, always_—and they have only become closer. They are still drifting; but now they are no longer drifting aimlessly. Now, each of them has become the anchor for the other and when they drift, they are circling the other like ships swinging around an anchor chain.

Apart, yet together.

Drifting, yet no longer adrift.

They can't do this forever.

They know that eventually either they will no longer be required to pilot jaegers and fight the kaiju; or there will be a battle that they do not win. A battle where the sullen ember of revenge fails to grow into a flame strong enough to burn the kaiju into a cinder.

It is a fact of life that they have both accepted.

It's a fact that they can ignore.

It doesn't matter_—will never matter_—because they will never lose their anchors again.

They will follow them down into the depths of the drift.

* * *

A/N-any mistakes are mine; I tried to keep it canon-compliant.

Comments are always appreciated.


End file.
